


Poison & Wine

by justakidfromabadan



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Handcuffs, James Wesley POV, M/M, Masquerade, Slight Canon Divergence, closely related au to the first season of the show, handcuffs are what started this whole thing, mystery and romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22287685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justakidfromabadan/pseuds/justakidfromabadan
Summary: James Wesley wakes to find himself handcuffed to a familiar stranger.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & James Wesley, Matt Murdock/James Wesley
Comments: 14
Kudos: 38





	1. Handcuffs

Handcuffs have played a lot of creative roles in the first thirty-three years of James Wesley’s tidy and ordered life. He is familiar with the sound of their chain tugging against his own headboard, its winding click against a wrist is a sound one can almost taste. James is even fond — though perhaps only in secret — of the imprints the metal tends to leave behind after a night of passion. 

But James Wesley is not used to being the one wearing the cuffs. Or, more accurately, wearing only one of the cuffs while the other is attached to the pale wrist of an unconscious man with a five o’clock shadow, a defiant chin, a wrinkled tuxedo, and a sinful pair of lips.

Almost too predictably, they are handcuffed to a stifling radiator but James can’t complain too hard as his toes are numb from both the cold and lack of movement. He wiggles them inside his wing-tipped shoes which are, he is annoyed to discover, scuffed at the top. 

James is still attempting to piece together the answer to salient questions such as what happened? and where am I? but the pounding of his head, the lack of a memory, and the presence of this mystery man handcuffed to him gives him an inkling that perhaps James, too, was unconscious quite recently.

He presses the tip of two fingers to his throbbing temple and regrets it immediately. Pain branches from the raised skin his his forehead and roots back behind his eyes.

“Ow,” he says to the brick wall which seems to be doing him the favor of propping him up.

A few tattered memories surface through the swirling smoke of his muddled mind: obsessing over a bowtie in the mirror; a function — a fundraiser? — at the top of a revolving hotel; cocktails and the disembodied smile of a man. 

No, not of _a_ man. The smile of _this_ man. 

“Shit fuck shit,” James says, and the brick room swallows the word dutifully. James seldom swears, especially given the circumstances of his employment, which is perhaps why he is so rusty with the flow of a good string of curses. But this is the kind of room that knows it warrants swearing in. What else would a room without any furniture, a lone radiator, two handcuffed men, and a bare Edison bulb be used for if not for occasional swearing?

The nights’ events flurry through the haze of his mind, a sudden maelstrom of memory, and James remembers. 


	2. Masquerade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Wesley meets a stranger in a mask at a fundraising masquerade.

The night begins with a mask. It is not his usual invisible mask, dipped in perfectionism and worn through practice.

Tonight’s variety is the one he is most fond of, if only because it is the least like him yet one that garners the most attention. James Wesley revels in attention when he is the one asking for it. Perhaps this is why he gets along most with cats and is partial to the color black.

It is a simple silver mask which complements his suit. It only shades half of his face but rather than hide his high cheekbones and his stark eyebrows — both of which he thinks are his best features — seem to accentuate them in a way James Wesley finds almost startling as he ties the silk ribbon behind the shelter of his ears.

James confronts his reflection in the full-length mirror and does what he does best, which is nitpicking at his own appearance. Usually, he is paid handsomely for his attention to detail from lint rollers before an interview to a semi-colon on a closing deal. But he would be a richer man if he was paid for how he pruned himself to fit the masks others liked to see.

Life is a flurry of revolving masks, he thinks to himself, and he is pleased with that imagery as secret poets tend to be.

James runs a comb through his locks and achieves the mussed look that normally takes him an hour to perfect. Then he tugs at his crisp French cuffs and, at the last moment, changes his mind about his cufflinks. He trades the jade ones, his go-to for functions like these, to a pair of snake-eye dice ones which he has never worn before. But they seem appropriate, and in matters of dressing himself, James Wesley is particularly keen in listening to his instincts.

The fundraiser is at The View, a rotating restaurant in the middle of the city. James would be called a punctual person if not for his anal time-keeping and showing up too early to all functions, especially when they include his boss. Thankfully, he is allowed in the spacious oval room, cleared of its usual white-linen tables, but besides the bar and the wait staff seems to be the only person in the ballroom. 

He looks at the kingdom of New York City spread before him, thick white snow contrasted by the persistent nightfall of winter time. Lights scatter below him like twinkling fireflies. This land is much more beautiful from high up with its flaws hidden and its shortcomings out of focus. 

James orders a glass of straight whiskey from the bar and manages to nurse it in the stifling quiet of the ballroom until others arrive. His fingers drum against the polished surface of the bar, restless as the rest of him.

He feels as if tonight is different than all other nights, that this event is different. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that it’s a masquerade, and not one even pretending to be acquainted with All Hallow’s Eve.

But tonight, he feels like he is waiting. For what, he could not say, but the air has a crisp finality to it. By the time James orders a second drink, more people have started arriving. It does not take him long to discover his mistake of not bringing a plus one, as his gilded invitation suggested he should do, as most of tonight’s party-goers are paired off into couples. 

His third drink manages to take the usual edge off of his tightly coiled mannerisms. The third drink is also when he has an uncomfortable thought about himself he has never had before: that he is the epitome of a person who lives deep in the middle of life without ever touching the fraying fringes of it. 

“May I join you?”

The voice belongs to a man that slides in the seat next to him, despite James never having given him permission to do so. The man is also wearing a mask and a lightly wrinkled tuxedo like it was a thing he found at the bottom of the closet and just threw on for the night since that was the dress code. There is a slight ill-at-ease feel to him, and James turns to quip that there are many other seats at the bar when he is taken off guard by a chiseled jaw and a pair of sinful lips the color of a rosé. 

“Of course,” James says after adjusting his snake-eye cufflinks. “What are you drinking?”

The man smiles, and the strings of James’ heart play the prelude to a sonata he has not heard in many years. Perhaps he has never heard of it, but the beat of it sounds familiar in his ear. “I will have what you’re having which… is it whiskey?” 

“The drink of champions,” James says and flags the bartender for an identical drink to his own. 

“Amen,” says the stranger. There is a reverberation in his voice as he says the word, like he believes every cadence of it, every letter. 

“Are you a religious man?” James ventures.

“I was an afflicted man once.” 

“Might I ask what happened?” 

Another smile appears below the black mask the stranger dons. “I got better.”

They laugh together, and the sound of their laughter is a kind of harmony. James Wesley is not a sentimental man, never has been, but he has good taste and a musical ear. They sound like they are meant to conduct the chorus of laughter more often together.

“How about yourself?” the man in the black mask asks, and the way he asks it makes James pause for a moment. There is the whisper of an accent, something James almost recognizes.

“Religion is something I would have been fond of if I had ever been introduced to it, but alas, I was never inducted into any of the major ones.” 

The drink comes and interrupts the flow of the conversation. The man in the black mask takes his drink like a man who is used to rowdy pubs and cheaper drinks.

They sip on the companionable silence along with their drinks. Somewhere behind them, there is live music. It swells slowly, the violin and the piano weaving in together as the bass becomes the backdrop.

“Would you like a dance?” James offers the man in the black mask his hand. He does not feel like himself, and that would, on a usual night, have bothered him. He is a man used to curbing his desires, especially those impulses that threaten to rob him of his mask. But tonight, his mask is not invisible. It will not be yanked away.

The man in the black mask accepts the offered hand, and James leads him to the dance floor. To James’ delight, the stranger allows hands at his hip and his upper back and lets himself to be led. 

As the cloud of music grows to fit the ballroom, the two men in masks grow closer together. Their bodies align, bowing into each other like two trees in the midst of a tempest. There are others, James knows, dotting the vast sea of the dance floor. But in the gale of the mounting notes, there is only the masked man.

“Are you partial to fundraisers?” the man murmurs, his low cadence adding a spiceful blend to the music. “Or is this your first?”

James thinks, this is a man who hears every sound, who pitches his voice perfectly to be heard without shouting. There is something undeniably seductive about it.

“It is nowhere near my first,” James replies easily as he leads the man further into the center of the room. “But I would dare suggest that it is my favorite one thus far.” 

“Your favorite,” the man in the black mask echoes with a chime of surprise. “Why’s that?”

“Am I that subtle? I thought I was being perfectly clear with my intentions, having asked you for a dance.”

“Maybe I’d like to hear the words out loud.” 

Words get lost in the twisting roads of James’ mind, sharp comebacks and quick wit having deserted him in his hour of need. He is empty, scooped out of his own body, and he is glad for it.

In the absence of glamour dressing up his words, he is left with only the truth. “I am intrigued by you.” 

A pause from the man in the mask, and then, “How’s that?” 

“You do not belong here.” 

“Neither do you.”

James instinctively reaches for his mask, but it is still secure on his face. It hasn’t even slipped half an inch. But how is it that this stranger sees through it?

“Sorry,” the man in the black mask apologizes. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You haven’t,” James says just as he is finding that it is true. 

The song comes to a close, a melancholic melody preceding its death. The final note lingers, and in its wake, there is a pressing silence as the two men still hold on to one another. 

“Another drink?” the stranger suggests though he is not making any effort to extract himself from James, either. Their joint arms shelter one another.

“Another drink,” James concurs as his hand slips down to the hold the stranger’s.

There are innocuous moments that change lives. Sometimes, it’s holding a stranger’s hand in the middle of a crowded ballroom. Sometimes, it’s a dance after a few drinks. Sometimes, it’s the loosening of a mask. 

For James Wesley, it’s all three.


	3. Maskless

James Wesley pulls himself out of the sticky pages of his unreliable memory. The rest of the events of the night are crinkled like a stray piece of paper and tossed around the corner of his otherwise tidy mind. James Wesley is not sure he wants to smooth it out just yet. 

His headache is also becoming a throbbing reminder of his current predicament.

A refrain plays in the recesses of his mind like a prayer, incessant and sacred all at once. James shuts his eyes and tips his head back, attempting to pick at the waning notes. It’s Mozart, and it’s in the majors, which he only tolerates as a relief against the minors rather than for their own merit. But while the trills sound familiar, he cannot discern which concerto it belongs to.

He thinks, perhaps, this is how his mystery man, now without a mask, makes him feel. Barely out of grasp and agonizingly intimate yet nameless. 

James opens his eyes to the warehouse that is more shadow than brick. The skylight gapes into the void of the night. Snow falls with quiet dignity, a silent witness as it sticks to the clear glass. 

It is hard to tell time in the dark, especially in a city removed from it, but the chill in the air has a just-before-sunrise quality to it with which James is intimately familiar. It is that time of night — or morning, if your name happens to be James Wesley — where there is enough space to be a person. It’s when James practices his violin or when he distills unwarranted emotions into words but refuses to call it poetry.

This faux peacefulness brings him to a delicate yet clear conclusion: there is no one searching for him.

Either on impulse or desperation — they tend to leave the same aftertaste in James’ mouth — he reaches and touches the maskless man. He is cold, but not dead.

James is acquainted with death better than most as he is usually one to administer its sentence when it behooves his boss’ mood, which tends to be often. He knows the cold which implies finality, a borderline through which there is no return. 

The maskless man is not dead. He is merely halfway there with a fading heartbeat at his wrist. James feels his heart fluttering with a whisper of hope, and this seems to coincide with the maskless man stirring.

His eyes open, but they do not focus on James Wesley. They do not seem to focus on anything.

“James?” the maskless man prompts, and without the mask, his voice seems more immediate. And it is a voice that knows how to inflect his name, exactly as it is intended.

“You know my name,” James observes. The discarded memory at the corner of his mind begins to take shape, tinged with black, silver, and red. All he needs to do is acknowledge its presence.

But he is preoccupied with unblinking eyes of the maskless man who joins him at the wrist and what he says next as works himself into a sitting position with a groan. “They found us, didn’t they?”

The us in the man’s question is not lost on James. “Who?”

But the memory unfurls and consumes James Wesley with it. 


	4. Stardust

Time passes without James’ Wesley’s knowledge, but it serves him the name of the man in the black mask — Matthew — and three glasses of a cherry merlot he would never admit to ingesting in different company. 

But after learning Matthew’s name, James wants to keep the sweet tartness on his tongue.

“Matthew,” he says after the name is given to him so freely. He is amused by the biblical nature of both of their names, enough that he parts with his own. “A Matthew to my James. Named after one of Christ’s apostles, I am to assume?”

That earns him a raised eyebrow.

James sips on his cherry wine which tastes of time and of a bottled summer. “I was not introduced to any particular religion but to all of them at once as a body of literature.” 

“Probably a better idea.” Matthew says, and the phrase is accompanied with a grin. It’s a grin that’s wide and without any limits. There is a hint of misbehavior at the upward turn of it, right where he dimples. “There’s less guilt involved with that method.” 

“Catholic, then?”

“Recovering,” Matthew confirms.

Silence lays between them, but instead of creating a rift, it stitches them together like two different notes that have no business following one another but somehow are more beautiful with just enough pause between them. 

“James,” Matthew says, and James looks in his direction.

He still cannot see Matthew’s eyes as they are shadows behind that black mask. But James feels oddly seen, as if Matthew has stripped him not only from the silver mask but also his arsenal of all others. He feels like he fits the shadow cast by his name the way that Matthew utters it. 

It is the same way he uttered amen earlier in the night. 

Time carries them on its back through the party and through more drinks. There are many unsaid things between them that are revealed with thumbs at the back of knuckles, with long-held glances, with brushing shoulders.

On James’ fourth glass of cherry wine, Matthew says, apropos of nothing, “I feel like I have known for you years.”

James is suddenly stiflingly hot in his suit jacket and shifts back his seat to remove it. He drapes the jacket behind his chair and leans into Matthew’s words. “What makes you say that?”

“Have you not felt it?” Matthew says. “It’s like I’ve met you before, but not in this lifetime. Some other time.”

“Stardust.”

“Sorry?” 

“Stardust,” James says again. “It’s a popular theory that we are all made of the same star stuff. I don’t really know how scientifically sound it is. I’ve never been a man of science, either.” 

“No.” Matthew combs his fingers through his hair, and James notes that this is something that likely happens often when he is feeling uneasy. “No, you’re more of a poet than a scientist.” 

The word poet shoots through James’ veins like a particularly potent drug. “Am I that obvious?”

He sincerely hopes the answer is no.

“No, it’s pretty subtle. It’s the way you say things, sometimes. The way you see the world.” 

"You see more than you let on,” James remarks, smiling ruefully. “And here I thought I was the only one doing any meaningful observation.” 

Matthew echoes the smile, and it’s a knowing one. “And what have you observed?”

James only shakes his head. He takes off his spectacles and cleans them on a kerchief.

“C’mon,” Matthew presses. “It’s only fair.” 

James puts back his glasses on the bridge of his nose. The man in the black mask, Matthew, comes into focus. “You are not here for the fundraiser.” 

"Am I that obvious?” Matthew says, grinning again as he lobs back James’ own words back to him. 

“Not to the untrained eye. But your tuxedo is most probably not your own, but your shoes are, and they’re old. They certainly don’t match in color, which means that either you are poorer than you’re, forgive the term, masquerading, or that the tuxedo is not yours to begin with. Most probably both..” 

Matthew’s mouth opens to say something, drawing attention to those tinged lips, but then he thinks better of it and rubs at his jaw instead. 

“You do not have anyone else in your life right now, at least not someone who lives with you, because your tie has been crooked all night and you have not noticed.” 

Matthew’s smile makes a comeback. “You  _ are _ good. Anything else?” 

James hesitates. There are words that, when said in a certain order, cannot be taken back.

But then there’s the safety of the mask. 

“You are a person who touches the fringe of the world often but are no less lonely for it.” 

Something shifts underneath Matthew’s mask.

“And you have a secret that is worth wearing a mask for.”

James thinks that they have laid waste to each other’s secrets with surgical precision. Perhaps not the details, but there is knowledge deeper than the events of their lives.They have glimpsed the truth of one another from behind masks.

They are both sinners of different sorts.

The wine bottle between them reflects the candlelight. Matthew reaches for his own glass and drowns the content along with his own discomfort. He laughs. “Are you certain we have not met before?”

Before James can formulate any kind of answer, the lights go out. Darkness tries, and fails, to engulf the entire ballroom into itself. The candles strewn about the small tables, including at their table, illuminate a small radius but not enough to dispel the cloud of confusion that descends on the crowd of party-goers. 

Matthew’s silhouette rises. “We have to go.” 

“Pardon?” James says. “It appears that there’s a blackout—”

“It isn’t.”

James finds his heart revving, not only at the words, but upon finding a sliver of golden light cutting below the double doors. Door that lead to the elevators. 

“We need to go,” James agrees, and here is  _ we _ again, complementing the earlier  _ us _ . 

James reminds himself that this is not the time for these thoughts, just as Matthew’s fingers slot against his, and they are running through the dark.

But time has other plans for them. It slows, and an entirely different darkness grasps James Wesley and makes him stumble into unconsciousness.


	5. Deal

When the memory peters out, James Wesley is particularly annoyed at not recalling, exactly, how he scuffed the top of his most expensive shoes. 

“James,” Matthew says, and the way he says it implies that he has been attempting different tones of his name until one of them grasped his attention.

“Matthew.”

“Are you alright?”

“Mmm.” James pinches the bridge of his nose. “There is a distinct possibly that this is not my life and I am living someone else’s memories. Otherwise, peachy.” 

Matthew feels for James’ free hand, and two of his fingers pressing lightly against his wrist. James’ pulse jumps against the touch. 

“How much do you remember?” Matthew asks, and there is a hint of fear mixed into the concoction of this particular question. 

“Enough. The important parts of tonight if it still  _ is  _ tonight.” 

Matthew is looking for something in his inside coat pocket and is having trouble retrieving it one-handed. “Sorry, could I…?”

“Be my guest,” James says and lets Matthew have his hand. The back of his wrist bumps against Matthew’s chest. “What happened after they cut off the light?”

“I can only guess.” Without the mask, Matthew’s face is less imposing. It is a kind face. James Wesley does not have many kind faces in his life, and he thinks he would like to keep this one around in any way he can. “I think they drugged us.” 

“They. They who?”

“Your boss, I think.” 

James is shocked into looking into Matthew’s eyes, except that it feels more like staring at a locked door. Matthew is not watching him. 

“My boss.” James breathes out a sigh. “Why would my boss care?” 

Matthew’s expression folds on itself. A war wages behind his eyes, unseen and unheard but no less violent than if James was a part of it himself. James sees the moment Matthew decides on the exact words that will change the course of James Wesley’s life. “Because of me, probably, because of who I am.” 

James stares at the maskless man. And then he imagines him with a different kind of mask entirely, one painted with the devil’s color. 

“You…?” James breathes. 

Matthew gathers into himself more, as if he is awaiting a blow or a shout. But while violence has been the backdrop of James Wesley’s life, he has always lacked it in his nature. There are other words that describe his feelings, but anger is not one of them. Hurt and confused mingle with shock and, amusingly enough, relief. The loudest, though, is grief.

“Ah,” James says, eyeing the handcuffs. “That would explain these.”

There is a bobby pin in Matthew’s hand now, apparently the item he has been searching for in the depth of his pockets. “I can probably remove those.”

“Was I only a part of your plan, then?” James asks as Matthew secures the bobby pin in his mouth and breaks it in half. 

“You were not part of the plan but the reason for it.” 

James is not expecting the stream of these particular words, strung together neatly like a rosary, dispelled for penance. 

“I’m… sorry?”

Matthew takes James’ wrist in his hand and inserts the sharp end of the bobby pin into the keyhole. “Let me tell you a story,” Matthew says. “One you’re a part of, unknowingly so, I think, but the story isn’t about you. Not yet, anyway. And at the end of it, by the time we’re out of these handcuffs, you can decide whether you’d like to come with me. Do we have a deal?”

If this is a deal with the devil, then the terms are generous.

James says after a moment, “Deal.”


	6. Hero

Matthew crouches atop a roof of a building made mostly of glass in lower Manhattan and listens. He listens with his whole self. He listens with the tips of his fingers, and he listens with each measured heartbeat. He bats away the noise of the sirens at least ten blocks away or the aggressive argument between the coffee cart vendor and her businessman client. He shuts the rest of his city out, curtains off his awareness, and allows for only a single voice to penetrate his concentration. 

The voice belongs to the CEO of the glass building, and it is currently difficult for Matthew to extract every word of his sentences. He speaks in punctuations, conviction punching the end of every sentiment.

He is conversing with another man whose voice belongs to old stories and late-night poetry instead of a tech firm. This man speaks more melodically, though his words are pruned, without an article or preposition out of place.

Matthew manages to exhume some of the words from the rubble of noise.

“… wanted to discuss the numbers with you, sir,” the poet says, and there is something about that  _ sir _ that is more than just politeness of an inferior to a superior. It is honed for this particular man, not for anyone else, and it is rounded and well-used like a favorite, comfortable coat.

“Ah,” the man with conviction says. “Yes, of course, James. Come in.” He allows for a deliberate pause before amending, “Close the door.” 

There is silence. Matthew has a moment of wondering whether the room is soundproof with its door closed, but then he hears the poet — James — again. “Has no one else come to you, Mr. Fisk?”

Fisk does not answer immediately, but when he does, he sounds like he is holding back a slew of words and only allowing a few past the borders of his teeth. “They… have not.” 

Another pause. Fisk sure knows how to perform to this particular audience. The tension between poetry and conviction is an old dance, a series of complicated steps around an unspoken subject. 

“What seems to be the problem, exactly?” Fisk asks at last. 

“The last three months,” James says, “there have been a series of significant transactions that do not seem to be entered into the system. Several of them in my name, which I know must be a mistake as you monitor all of my activities, sir.”

“Do you have hard copies of them?” 

“Of course, sir.” 

Rustling of paper. A long silence, longer than any of its predecessors. 

“I see,” Fisk says finally, drawing out the act of seeing as if he does not really see but understands the idea behind the seeing. “I see…”

James says nothing, at least nothing Matthew can hear from his perch. 

“Might I keep this?” Fisk says, and Matthew presumes that it’s the papers with numbers. Funny how a business can be condensed into a story of numbers on pieces of paper. The numbers always tell a story, one way or another, because they are always changing, always going from one place to another. 

It’s how Matthew has found this setting and cast of characters. All of his clues have led him to this moment, to this particular story of numbers on paper, to this rooftop, to this James.

“Of course, sir, you may keep them,” James is saying.

“Does anyone else know of this?”

“No, sir, only you. I didn’t want it to be a… problem if it was only a mistake.”

“Very well. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, James. I always appreciate your diligence.” 

Matthew mistakes the hesitation for a natural pause in the conversation, but then it lingers a moment too long like an innocent hand brushing an elbow. “Always, sir.”

Dress shoes click against tiles, signifying James’ retreat. 

A door closes. A cell phone beeps. A line rings.

Matthew waits.The devil inside scratches at the walls of his skin with wariness.

“Francis.” Anger simmers underneath the name. “I’m getting impatient, and you know how much I dislike that.”

Matthew cannot hear Francis, but his reply is curt.

“Who else? He’s been in a thorn in my side ever since the Q2 reports. He’s too smart for this scheme. It’ll have to be someone else.”

A pause as Francis asks something.

“Tonight, at the masquerade. Take care of him. And Francis? This is no longer a negotiation.”

The call terminates. An abrupt silence follows. A breath held hostage in Matthew’s lungs escapes violently. 

The first two acts of the story might have foreshadowed these consequences, but they were subtle. This is not just a story of cover-up and corruption but also of a complicated love and a more complex kind of hate.

As with all stories, there is no unknowing knowledge once gained.

Matthew rises to his full height atop the building made of glass and contemplates his options. He thinks, he’s always been fond of masquerades. He thinks, he needs a different kind of mask to change the course of this story. He thinks, it’s time to play the hero in someone’s story again. 


	7. Snowstorm

The lock Matthew has been fiddling with opens with a distinctive click as he puts finishing touches on the story and exonerates James Wesley from his former life -- the life before the story.

James claims his hand back and breathes life into it.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Matthew asks after James’ silence mounts like the snow outside. 

James finds his uncooperative voice somewhere deep within the cavity of his chest. “I believe you entirely, that’s the problem.” 

“Problem?”

“You have no idea who I am, Matthew, at least you didn’t when you made the decision to come here — or to the masquerade this evening.”

“I did not have to know you,” The loosened handcuff dangles at Matthew’s wrist. He seems much smaller now, without the mask, and James thinks the late-night mask of the devil Matthew wears is an ill-fitting shadow cast to conceal the vast brightness that is his heart. “You were just a person who needed… help.” 

Words flee James in all twelve, fluent languages. He opens his now useless mouth to form a word, any word, but Matthew puts a finger against James’ lips. “Footsteps.” 

James stills. 

“On my signal,” Matthew breathes and hides the evidence of their freedom behind the radiator.

Their hands find the safety of another on the heated floor.

The door opens and reveals the yawning chasm of the hallway behind it. From the grip of the darkness, Wilson Fisk emerges. He is wearing white, contrasted against the shadows that follow behind him in forms of faceless body guards.

A hush falls over the room. 

Fisk’s eyes flit between James and Matthew before finally settling on James. Impatience dances in them. 

“James,” Fisk says in a tired, older-parent kind of voice which James finds quite patronizing for a man who cannot even remember his own social security number.

“Wilson.” He has never called his boss by his first name. It has always been “sir” or “Mr. Fisk.” But that was before the story, before the handcuffs, before the fall.

“This is disappointing, James.” Fisk’s words are deliberate, spaced evenly as they are uttered. “I had better plans for you than… than this.” 

_ This _ is a substitution thrown instead of Matthew’s name. It’s a spitting word, poisoned with vitriol.

“Mmm,” James hums. Behind the radiator, his fingers shelter Matthew’s. Matthew’s fingers twitch back in response and causes James’ heart to flood with a thrill. “Imagine how I feel for I’ve only just heard quite an interesting story, Wilson.”

Wilson is a thorned name that refuses to stay in James’ mouth, but he forges it with his tongue and the roof of the mouth. 

“What tales has he spun up to get you to be on his side?” 

James’ single-shouldered shrug is a subtle technique to sell the fiction of his restraint. “I find it curious, though, that I was drugged, dragged here, and handcuffed to a stranger—”

“He is no stranger,” Fisk objects.

But James overrules it, knowing that he is treading the limits of his former boss’ patience. “I know who he is. I know why he’s here. What I don’t understand is why I am here, your most loyal employee, somehow the offending party without even knowing of my crime.”

Fisk says nothing. Impatience turns an ugly color in his eyes. But Matthew has not transmitted the promised signal, so James trades only two more words in exchange for borrowed time. “Why, Wilson?”

“You ask too many questions.” Fisk’s voice is veiled with the idea of calmness but his shoulders tell a different tale as they tense beneath his white suit. “You always have.”

Fisk nods towards the door, and Francis materializes as if summoned from the realm of shadows. He wears a smirk to go with the gleam of the twin barrels of a semi-automatic trained on Wesley’s heart. 

"Ah, so this is personal,” James says aloud, and because he cannot stop himself continues, “I’m glad I turned drinks down last Tuesday. How embarrassing this would have been for both of us.” 

At the precise moment Francis decides to pull the trigger, Matthew pulls James down to the ground with him, holding his head down. James’ view becomes the floor and two pairs of shoes — one made for fighting and the other made for watching a fight from afar. 

Then the hand on the back of his neck is lifted, and there’s only the tingling sense of danger. James rolls out of the way of the fight behind the meagre shelter the radiator offers from bullets and fists. 

Matthew’s fists are busy acquainting themselves with various parts of Francis’ face, and James has a sudden insight into the complications of Matthew being a hero underneath the devil’s guise. The mask has always been an excuse, born of fists and the red haze of anger. 

Then James’ sight of his Matthew is obstructed by a spotless suit the color of a snowstorm. He tries to scramble back out of the grasping, gnarled fingers of Wilson Fisk but is caught by the scruff of his dress shirt and pulled to his feet, then higher and higher until all the breath leave James’ lungs, until there is no breath left in his entire body.

James struggles for a breath that will not come to him as Wilson Fisk’s hands press into the soft tissue of his neck. James attempts to pry Fisk’s insistent fingers, knowing Fisk could break his neck with such swift ease, but James knows that this, too, is personal. For Wilson Fisk, this is not so much about killing James so much as watching him struggle.

This relationship has always been about a struggle.

The evidence of it is alive in Fisk’s eyes now, that ugly thing that James has mistaken for impatience or anger.

James’ lungs scream in his chest, and his vision starts to narrow. His eyes stray to Matthew, who has knocked the gun away from Francis and is laying into him with fists that know no mercy.

He expects the approach of death to slow down the last moments of his life, but it does not. James’ life does not flash before his eyes. It rattles out of him swiftly.

His last thoughts are of the devil that dared to free him. Then darkness claims his vision for a final time.

There is no poetry in the death of James Wesley.


	8. Death

Death does not feel right. 

James Wesley has not died before, at least not in this lifetime or in this storyline, but this lack of deathliness is disconcerting. 

(Is _deathliness_ even a word? Probably not, but he vaguely recalls reading it in a bad book a lifetime ago.) 

Here are the reasons, in chronological order, why James Wesley thinks that his life has not deserted him entirely. (And yes, the list of reasons border dangerously on the territory of a to-do list as if death is just another inconvenience to check off. Maybe it is. James Wesley would not know.) 

Reason number one: It’s bright wherever he is. James Wesley has always associated the lack of life with a lack of light. This isn’t for any allegorical or metaphysical reason. The logic is much simpler than that. James Wesley cannot conceive of a way to perceive light without the existence of his eyes. 

Which brings him to reason number two: He definitely still possesses his vision, and it is definitely blurry. Someone must have removed his contacts. He can make the fuzzy outlines of furniture-sized things nearby wherever he is. It’s a sparse room, his half-vision informs him, with what is roughly the dimensions of a queen bed carrying his weight. There is the idea of a window with abstract light filtering through it. There are no curtains, which at the very least explains the intensity of brightness. There is also a wardrobe-shaped something tucked in the corner of the room, next to the window.

Reason number three: James has also associated death with cold. This  _ is _ allegorical, but cold is also the nature of the universe. Currently, James Wesley is not cold. In fact, it is almost stifling, but in one of those it’s-freezing-outside-but-cozy-inside ways rather than in any infernal sense.

Reason number four: His bladder is about to burst. 

Reason number five and also the most uncomfortable of all of them: James Wesley is in pain. There are different varieties of pain, and James Wesley is spanning through all of them simultaneously. There’s the numb, dull throbbing around his throat; there’s the sharp, electric spike of pain in his left ankle when he tries to move it, which dissuades him from doing so further; and then there’s the hunger-turned-feral pain gnawing at the insides of his digestive system. 

This also happens to be the most promising premise to his working hypothesis of not being entirely dead. James has never seen religion as anything other than a form of long-winded fiction with many plot holes and character development issues. His curiosity has not even allowed him to dabble in the spiritual arts. But he thinks that if God or any other series of pantheons existed, they would not be cruel enough to allow for pain to bleed and linger in the afterlife. 

Probably.

_ Did you think about Sisyphus and Tantalus? _ the classically trained Greek mythology part of his brain reprimands.

Reason number six, though, is the most convincing and one that puts the nail in the coffin (no pun intended): The pillows smell of Matthew. 

It’s subtle but persistent, much like Matthew himself, and James associates it with the patient scent of an old church comfortable in its own rituals. It’s the happy marriage of candle wax, frankincense, and earth.

It’s a scent James Wesley could learn to worship every morning at the Church of Matthew.

James peruses his mental list and decides the most urgent, not-dead issue (and arguably the easiest) to address is his whining bladder. 

The door to the room is slid halfway open. The space beyond it is quiet. James swings one pajama-clad leg over the mattress after the other. He allows for his right calf to take most of his weight. His left ankle is in worse shape than the pain would suggest, so James hops on his other leg, feeling utterly ridiculous and cursing the shortcomings of the human body as he adventures out of what he assumes is Matthew’s bedroom in search of a bathroom.

He finds a snoring lump on the sofa, under a faded checked blanket. Upon closer inspection, which mostly entails squinting, James identifies the lump as Matthew. 

Conclusion: James Wesley is definitely not dead. If he was, he would not be allowed in the heaven that was Matthew’s apartment. If heaven and hell are real places, James Wesley thinks he’d only be let in to the latter.

He hop-steps to his found destination. The bathroom is mercifully small, painted in a melancholy blue of early morning winter skies. It soothes him as he relieves himself. 

When Wesley emerges from the bathroom, life has taken a more life-like shape.

And Matthew is awake, sitting up with his hair tousled and a sleepy, owl-ish expression on his unshaven face that tugs at James Wesley’s heart.

“Sorry,” James says, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You … you’re awake,” Matthew says with the reverence of someone who did not expect James to wake up again. Perhaps he was closer to death than he’d thought. 

“In the flesh, though I think something’s wrong with my ankle.” 

“You landed on it after I socked Fisk.” Matthew is at his side in a breath then, shouldering the burden of most of James’ weight. “Sorry that took a while.”

“You had your hands full.”

Matthew helps James back in bed. “I don’t think you should stand on that ankle for a little while.” 

“I… suppose not.” A pause follows in the wake of the words. “Matthew?”

“James?”

James smiles. He likes this bit that they do. It’s theirs and no one else’s. Names have always had power to James, and James has only been referred to by his surname which does not feel like his. It isn’t his. It’s inherited from his grandmother like a cracked family heirloom without any true value.

But James is the person he has grown to be. 

Matthew is the person he wants to know better. 

“Why did you bring me here?” he asks as Matthew hovers at the threshold of his own room.

“It’s my place.” 

“I gathered that. But Fisk knows who you are now.” 

“He knows my face,” Matthew corrects. “That’s not the same thing.” 

“You know what I mean, Matthew.” 

Matthew perches at the edge of the bed gingerly. “He was arrested for attempted murder, so I don’t think it matters that he can recognize my face.”

The quiet becomes a fragile thing between them.

It’s Matthew who cracks it wide open. “I’m taking him to court.” 

“You  _ what _ ?”

“It’s okay, I’m a trained lawyer.”

“Matthew.” James’ patience is at the edge of plummeting into the chaos of anger. “He will eat you alive. It doesn’t matter that he’s behind bars. You’ll be disbarred. He’ll go after everyone you care for.”

“That’s why we’re taking the fight to him.” 

There’s that  _ we _ again. “We,” James chews on the word, tasting it. “What makes you think there’s a  _ we _ , Matthew?”

“I was under the impression that you chose your path once you decided to fight with me.”

A frown slants the slopes of James’ brows. “Fight? I barely stayed alive, and that was only because you saved me—”

“James,” Matthew says, and his hand finds its path alongside James’. “It doesn’t matter that you didn’t throw any punches. That’s not what fighting is about.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No,” Matthew says, and the word is a firm one, rooted in an invisible belief that sounds a lot like Matthew’s amen. “There are many ways to stand up to a bully like Fisk, and you stood up to him. That’s what matters. That’s why he was so angry, why he wanted you dead.” 

James is silent, and at the heart of his silence is a kernel of hope. It is a small thing, just a seedling, but it’s palpable and blatant without the poison of shame.

“So you’re doing this for my sake?” James says, but the fire has burned through his words and left only smoldering ash.

“Only if you want me to. I have time to withdraw as the prosecutor. It wouldn’t look good, but if you don’t want me to do it, I’ll back off.”

A smirk lends itself to James’ lips, unsure of how it got there. “You don’t seem like the kind to back off of any fight, Matthew.” 

“You’re right, I don’t. But this is technically your fight.”

A fight does not always look like a fight, James thinks. Sometimes it’s years of catering to another person and deleting yourself little by little in the process. This fight is a graveyard full of words unsaid, a menagerie of feelings unfelt.

“It won’t be an easy fight,” James says. “You know that.” 

“Those are the best ones worth fighting.”

What James Wesley hears is,  _ You are worth fighting for _ , and he has never been enough to fit into anyone’s corner of the world, not until Matthew. He thinks that maybe there’s a chance, just a chance, to find the lost pieces of himself dissolved in Wilson Fisk.

He curls his fingers behind the nape of Matthew’s neck and draws him into his own space, suddenly wanting him to be the only entity of his world. He sets aside the pain just as his lips find Matthew’s.

It’s a rusty kiss accented with the roughness of days-old stubble. But the stream of time molds it into something softer, more molten, and bright. 

“Is that a yes?” Matthew asks when their lips stray from one another’s for a moment.

James Wesley tastes the sweetness of the question. “Well,” he says. “I  _ do _ have a fight to finish.”

But the fight is far away, another lifetime. It can wait.

“Just… not today,” James amends after a deliberate moment.

“Not today,” Matthew concurs.

Death comes in many forms, James Wesley thinks, but this is not death in its most traditional sense. Rather it’s Death as it comes in a tarot spread, as it comes at the conclusion of the day, as it comes every October. It is not a true ending but the fertile soil of a new beginning.


End file.
